Day Two

Yep, they are still out on strike. This is beginning to get boring, even for me. Thank you dear readers who are sticking through it with me.

I drove by the school yesterday on my way to the bank. The teachers were all out there with their little picket signs. Now tell me, if they really didn't intend to strike until the wee morning hours, how did they get their signs printed up so fast? Hmm? Anyway, the teachers were all out there marching up and down having a jolly good time. I wish it would rain. :evil laughter:

Dear reader Dariasmama asked if they were getting paid while on strike. I'm not sure if there is any sort of strike fund through the union, but I know they aren't being paid by the schools. Let's see how long they can live without their measly salaries now. Actually I'd be a little upset if the union had enough money to pay the teachers even half their salaries. They are teachers not teamsters for crying out loud. Although they are starting to be as scary as teamsters.

They were crying in the morning newspaper that they all have to make their health insurance premiums themselves today or lose their insurance. How could the school board DO that to them? The outrage. :more evil laughter:

All this has me wanting to pull out an old copy of "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair to see what unions were originally all about.

The decision to cancel school today was made at 9pm last night, although talks went on for a few more hours. I ask you, who on earth can possibly think this is reasonable? Sure Beaver Cleaver's mom wouldn't have had a problem with childcare arrangements at that late hour, but even she had things to do,places to go, rooms to vacuum, pearls to wear. How on earth are working parents supposed to be coping with this? Oh right, they are supposed to be flooding the school board members with pleas to give the teachers everything they want and just settle it now. The same teachers who are supposedly teaching the children zero tolerance on bullying.

The school board has already given in to several of their demands. I am so bitterly disappointed in our teachers and so determined never to send Violet into any of their classrooms.

Strike!

Loyal readers of my blog know that the local teachers have been threatening to strike if they don't get all their demands met. Loyal readers of my blog also know that I think the teachers have marshmallows where their brains should be for turning down the offers the school board has been giving them. But I may be biased. I pay their salary through my real estate tax. Our great State of Illinois doesn't pay their mandated portion, so we trustworthy citizens pay more.

The negotiations between the teacher union representatives and the school board went on all weekend. They kept reporting that they were making progress and agreeing on items. They promised the parents in the school district an answer on the strike no later than Sunday at 6 pm.

Now, Sunday at 6 pm is way too late in my opinion. If I'm trying to plan Monday and won't know until Sunday night if my kids have school or not, how do I arrange to work and child care? Its not like there will be a foot of snow on the ground and everything will be grinding to a halt. Business will go on. What about the single-parent families that have even fewer options? Not everyone has a grandparent right around the corner who is happy to babysit at a moment's notice. Most people can't call into work Monday morning and say sorry I won't be in. I'd have decided on Friday when the strike threat was made that my children weren't going on Monday regardless of what the union decided.

I need to be careful here. I almost typed "what the teachers decided". What the teachers decided weeks ago was to turn their power over to the union officials and let them make the strike call. The teachers were brainwashed into thinking the school board would cave and they'd get all the union reps' demands. Marshmallows for brains.

Where was I? Oh yes, 6 pm Sunday night. An announcement was sent out. We're still negotiating we will let you know, no later than 9pm. Okay. By then it is too late to call the sitter, and Grandpa fell asleep on the couch hours earlier. The boss won't want to hear from you then. And the littlest kiddos will be going to bed not knowing if they'll have school or not and have no hope of there being good packing snow for a fort and a snowman. (Hey, we live in the Midwest, we're used to school being called off at the last minute for snow, not for marshmallows.)

9 pm arrives. No decision has been made. They say they will decide no later than 5:30 am, the standard time for snow days. So teachers are now the equivalent of Mother Nature?

According to the newspaper's website the decision was made about 3:15 am. Teachers were told to contact their picket captains. You cannot convince me it wasn't planned all along. The reps had every intention to strike.

There would be no school that day in Whoville. They say they will let parents know by 6pm tonight if Whoville Elementary will be open tomorrow. Uh huh, we've heard that story before. Yet the marshmallows will buy it.

I don't know who's watching the children today. But I'm glad mine is accounted for, here in attendance at Freakville Homeschool.

Busy week, soggy day

What a busy week we've had. As usual, when things pick up around home, work increases. It has been manageable, but there hasn't been any time to spare.

We did 3 full days of homeschool. I'm quite pleased with the way they've gone. We did a lot of science. Violet aced her spelling! She's done very well with math. I think using only the Nobel Knights of Knowledge and no workbooks of any kind has helped. I'm thinking we'll go all the way through the program, then consider filling in a few gaps or doing some reinforcing with Miquon. Then we'll decide where to go next.

Violet has decided she does want to do more Try-it workshops with the other Juliettes and earn her Junior Aid patch. We looked through the book but haven't decided on which ones to do. I suggested she pick about 6 that she thinks she can lead a part of, and let the younger girls vote.

It has been raining the last 2 days. It is really soggy out. But if you've seen Chicago on the Weather Channel, that isn't us. We don't have a foot of water in the streets. We know the areas that are flooding like that. Some of them flood if you sneeze and don't cover your nose and mouth. You'd think they'd do something about it.

I got most of my work done today. I still have one more thing to go tomorrow. But I was saving it for last because (I think) it will be the easiest.

I don't have our school plan very firm for next week. I hope I can pull off school without too much complaint. You see, tomorrow night we learn if the local teachers will be going on strike beginning Monday. Violet is already wondering why she might have to do school if Red is home. And "can't we do less work so there is some time to play." Arrggh. Red doesn't get any slack when she's in school. She still has to go and do all her homework before she can play. We've only got one week in. I am not ready for us to take a break. And this whole strike thing still has me spitting mad. They need to stop their greedy extortion and get back to work and try to teach those kids something. Like to get out of the street when a car is coming. Seems like many of them don't get that. I'm always breaking while they take their sweet time crossing in front of me.

Thank goodness I don't send Violet to public schools.

She was awesome!

Today we held an investiture ceremony/try-it workshop for 2 homeschool families that have also joined Girl Scouts as Juliettes. Violet was helping me lead part of it to work towards her Girl Scouting in the USA badge. She was nervous about it. There were 2 brownies and a daisy. Violet was awesome!

She really took a lead being the older, more experienced Girl Scout. The other girls looked up to her and that helped her relax a lot. Violet tends to clam up easily. And takes forever to warm up to new people. She acted like she did this sort of thing every day of the week.

We met in the park and found an empty table in the picnic shelter. I read the girls the Brownie story, that explains that Brownies and Girl Scouts are little helpers and do good deeds. Then we repeated the charm, "Twist me and turn me and show me the elf, I look in the water I saw...." Of course the answer is "myself". We brought a small mirror to be the pond. (Okay, backing up a second for those of you with no Girl Scouting experience. Brownies are the the little helpers that sneak around houses and help out. The wise old owl explains to the kids that they can see the Brownie for themselves if they go to the pond, say the charm, turn around 3 times and look in the pond. It is an ages old Girl Scout tradition to do this and look in a mirror.)

Violet was in charge of spinning the girls. Then she taught them all the secret Girl Scout stuff like the Girl Scout sign, quiet sign, handshake, friendship squeeze. Did I mention she was awesome!

We all discussed good deeds and the girls made little good deed notes to leave around their houses. We had also found some coloring books online that illustrate the Girl Scout laws and they started coloring them. We tried to make thin mint cookie ice cream in zip lock bags. It didn't freeze. But, being a good Girl Scout, I had some extra cookies with me for a snack.

Afterward the girls played in the park and we took a walk around the lake to the nature center. It was a really good afternoon. The other moms participated and were really great to have there. We all gossiped whenever the girls were off playing.

I'm trying to talk Violet into working on her Junior Aide award. She keeps going back and forth between wanting to try it and not wanting to. She'd have to meet with the girls 3 more times and lead another activity each time. I think she can do it. Tomorrow we'll look through her old Brownie Try-it book for ideas of things she can show the others how to do.

Three other girls and two moms is definitely closer to Violet's comfort zone. She'd never survive trying to go into a troop of 20 girls to show them something. Even being in the spotlight with 3 girls is a challenge for her. I think Juliette Low would be proud of her and how well she did today.

I know I am.

First day of school

Yep, we start today. At the crack of noon. Our school runs second shift. We start between noon and one. Finish any where from four to six depending on what we're doing, how many breaks we take, if we get tired and give in earlier.

Today we will tackle math, literature, science and history. That's plenty for me. Tomorrow we are throwing a Girl Scout ceremony for some homeschool Juliette friends. Violet will be working towards a badge, the Brownies will complete a Try-it. The moms will gossip. The weather promises to be nice, we are meeting in a park that is central to us all.

I changed my blog template. I liked the purple but couldn't get the other colors to look right with it. I had it really messed up. I decided to start over.

Mr. Incredible is back to work today. He's actually in his basement office, but is working. It was nice having him off. We accomplished a lot. We took some fun day trips. Now I can catch up on everything else that I let slide while he was home.

Daytripping

With Mr. Incredible off this week we've been hanging out at home doing chores and going on daytrips. At one point we had discussed going to St. Louis for several days while he was off and I think we are all glad we decided to stay home.

Our trip to the Madison Zoo was a huge hit. We really liked it there. However, next time we will know that if the main restaurant is closed, the smaller one has no vegetarian entrees. Mr. Incredible doesn't eat beef or pork or most animals. He does eat chicken, turkey and some fish. They had no chicken, turkey or fish. He had French fries for lunch. The iguana wouldn't share his veggie and fruit mix. I asked. Mr. Incredible insisted it wasn't a problem.

It is a small zoo, most people would cover it in about a half day. It took us all day. We are zoo-ies. Real fanatics. I was expecting the zoo to be small, but I wasn't expecting it to be so nice. You know how a lot of small older city zoos are pretty run down. Not Madison. We can't wait to go back.

Afterward we met Mr. Incredible's Dad and Step mom at a nearby mall. We had dinner with them, then they took Violet shopping for her birthday (yes, it was another belated celebration). She chose Build-a-Bear and made the Pumpkin Fun Kitty who is the current seasonal bear. (I don't know why, but my color configuration is not having my links show up. I've played around with it a little but haven't cracked the code yet. Click on Build a Bear to see the kitty.) She named her Tangerine.

Today at about noon we decided to grab lunch from Subway and head out to a forest preserve to hike. We chose a place we'd never been to that was about a half an hour away. It was really nice. We ate and hiked both the short and long loops of the trails for about 3 miles total. There were hundreds of teeny tiny toads all over. We had to walk really slow to avoid stepping on them. Mr. Incredible (who is really tall) kept walking into spider webs. We must have been the only ones to have hiked the long trail today. He finally started carrying a stick in front of himself to catch the webs. It was quite amusing.

I did a big harvest in my garden today. I should have taken pictures. I picked my spaghetti squash. I'm sad to report that some bugs had gotten into some of them. I pulled a slug out of one - now that was gross! I salvaged 6 of them. Four I cut into, removed anything remotely icky and baked them. Now I have 3 quart sized bags of cooked spaghetti squash in the freezer and one bowl in the fridge. Tomorrow I have a dinner with my lady friends so I'm going to make a spaghetti squash casserole with corn, black beans, green pepper, onion, tomato and chili powder to take with. The hostess has already told me she is keeping the leftovers.

School starts Monday. Probably. Violet and I are both still in vacation mode right now.

Edited: Well, I played with the colors and I still can't see the links very well and now it is practically exploding off the page at me. Sorry. I'll try again another time.

Yay! The crappy couch is gone!

Today is Mr. Incredible and my anniversary. We got married 19 years ago. He's off this week, so later we will all go out to eat. Tomorrow is the zoo trip.

Shortly after we got married we bought a really crappy little loveseat. We not only got married young, we got married poor. We had no money, Mr. Incredible was still in college. We lived in a crappy little apartment just off campus (which by crappy campus apartment standards, was actually really nice). He worked part-time at JC Penney and got a great employee discount. Best part was, when people returned items that they had bought through the catalog, and the store didn't normally carry the item, they'd clearance them really cheap. The employees always knew about it first (hey, it was a college town, they were all really poor college students) and got to use their employee discounts on top of the sale.

So that was how we managed to afford the crappy loveseat, our only piece of furniture. Today, the garbage guys hauled it away. I guess I should be sentimental, but I'm glad to see that eyesore gone.

When we moved to the house we didn't know what to do with it, so we stuck it in the room that later became Violet's room (we moved here before she was born). She's been stuck with the thing. Yesterday we hauled it out, down the stairs, and out to the curb. Finally!

But the crappy loveseat does live on. We saved the cushions off the back and the throw pillows. Violet and I are going to try to make covers for them. We're thinking something nice and furry, like Muppet-fur. In bright colors.

Violet also got 2 new bookshelves yesterday and new blinds. She doesn't have a sheet over her window blocking out the sun that the old crappy blinds didn't anymore. I got new blinds for my home office too. My last ones crumbled a few weeks ago when I tried to raise them to clean the window. The blinds in my office were also originally in that first crappy apartment. We tend to keep things a long time.

Violet wants to make a new valence for her window, now that we can see it. She has a design in mind. Schools starts next week, so I added these 2 sewing projects to our plan for the week. We'll estimate our fabric and head to Jo-Ann and see what we can find.

I just heard that in a down economy, thread sales go up. We all start sewing.